


Werewolves and Water Puddles

by halfanapple



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfanapple/pseuds/halfanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James worries a lot, Lily tries not to worry, and Remus and Sirius really just need some sleep.<br/>(Set during the first war, around 1981.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Werewolves and Water Puddles

**New series of attacks shakes London!**

_Last night has brought yet another tragedy right at the heart of Britain’s great metropolis, raising the number of murder victims in the last few weeks alone to 12, seven of which are being attributed to werewolf attacks! When will our Ministry finally take action?_

_“We’re doing what we can,” Ministry spokesperson Barney Shellston said upon enquiry yesterday evening, “but we regret to say that in our current situation we do not have a lot of means to put a stop to these wilful attacks. However, we advise everyone to take the highest precautions, and urgently request that you do not leave your homes after dark on a full moon under any circumstances --”_

 

James lowered the newspaper and sighed.

’10 important steps to ensure your family’s safety!’ proclaimed the leaflet that had fluttered out between the pages. Step 1: ‘Always put locking charms on all your doors and windows.’

He shook his head contemptuously. “That didn’t do the Miltons any good, did it? They simply blasted a hole through their living room wall!”

Not that he had been there for any of that. He only got his information second hand these days, from Sirius, who knew it from Frank. Sometimes it felt as though the house was shrinking in on him, smothering him slowly to death.

Lily, who had given the pamphlet a cursory glance, straightened up, stroking over the tightly wound muscles in his neck as she went. “You know they mean well, James,” she said. It sounded tired. “It’s just that they don’t know what to do any more than us.”

“And seven werewolf attacks,” James insisted. “There’s something fishy about that.”

At least that was what he thought. Lily just shrugged her shoulders. The longer they were trapped here, the more often she refused point-blank to be involved in any discussion about the pros and cons and whys and hows of the war. Maybe that was the sensible thing to do, James supposed. To not let oneself become chafed raw over this enforced inactivity they had subjected themselves to. But his thoughts just wouldn’t be laid to rest.

That thing with the werewolves, that was new. It had only been a couple of months in which the reports about vicious attacks had just about tripled. Doors forced open in the night, people torn limb from limb, children stolen away. Always the children. It could make you sick, just thinking about it, and it reeked of organised crime. To rally werewolves together, to direct them somehow, to _purposefully place them_ in the right position for these monthly attacks -- there had to be a driving force behind it, someone pulling the strings, because when left to their own devices these often rather pitiful creatures tended to retreat into lonely woods and meadows of their own accord, or even lock themselves in somewhere, let the moon rise and hope for the best. That was how Remus had described it to them.

And now, just last night, they had raided the house of the Miltons and got their little daughter. Muggleborns they were, associates of his father’s in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was driving James mad. And his sole sparse connection to the outside world was the Daily Prophet (as well as the morning and evening issue of the same) and the occasional visit of one of his friends, who were more often than not worn out and weary to the bone from the endless string of guard duty they did for the Order and the never-ceasing tension that permeated all of their lives these days.

Lily drummed her fingers against the kitchen countertop. “Have you heard from Remus yet?” That worried her, every time a full moon came and went. But James shook his head.

“Nah,” he said. Sirius had looked in this morning (figuratively, of course, aided by the good old two-way mirror) but they had been too caught up with the topic of the latest attacks, and he hadn’t asked. Well, what was supposed to happen, really? It was full moon, that was all.

“He’s still kipping, that’s all,” he told Lily. “You know how he is afterwards. Sleeping for two days straight, I bet he wouldn’t even notice if the rain came through the ceiling.”

Lily bit her lip. Didn’t think that was funny. James actually didn’t find it particularly funny, either, but they _had_ tried their best to get the stubborn git out of those damp and chilly digs of his, after all -- nothing to be done about it now but crack jokes.

He looked outside. A clap of thunder rolled through the air. On the upper floor, Harry began to cry.

 

~O~

 

The rain was not coming through the ceiling. But the alternative wasn’t much better and actually a lot more stupid, because it would have been so avoidable if only one was in possession of just a bit of brain capacity. Remus groaned and underwent the painstaking exercise of rolling over onto his back, blinking blearily at the ceiling. The next bolt of lightning made the expensive chandelier over his head flash in sharp pinpricks of light.

A puddle was creeping across the floor. He had been aware of its process for a while now, and terribly undecided as to whether or not preserving the wooden floor boards was worth the effort it would take to peel himself out of his warm blankets, stagger over there and close the balcony door. He couldn’t really get himself to bother. Plus, it wasn’t like this was his business, now, was it?

He cleared his throat in an effort to get his rough vocal cords going. Full moon always left him sounding like death warmed over. Today it wasn’t half bad, actually.

The puddle reached the coffee table.

“Sirius!” Remus called and listened carefully for the sound of someone stirring in the flat. “You left the balcony door open!”

Nothing. Was he on guard duty? Probably yes, but with the aftermath of his transformation still upon him like this, Remus’ usually well memorized schedules and plans were flitting around in his head like scraps of paper caught in a strong wind. He scrubbed the palm of his hand roughly over his face, pulled the blankets aside with a grumbling noise of discomfort and sat up. Useless to put it off any longer. It was getting chilly in here.

The balcony door closed with a satisfying snap. A magnificent summer storm was raging outside, but now his feet were wet and a violent shiver crawled down his back, making him shudder. Urgh, he needed to take care not to catch something while his immune system was frail like this. Anything but pneumonia! Last winter, someone down at the docks had died from that.

Still shivering he shuffled back to the sofa, pulled one of the blankets over his shoulders and reluctantly took off in search of warmer shores and a glass of water. The taste the whole ordeal always left in his mouth was positively repulsive.

Not surprisingly, Sirius’ kitchen cupboards proved to be less than fruitful, but next to a glass of tap water and an apple that was still mostly fresh, he did eventually produce half a bar of chocolate from the recesses of an upper cupboard -- the kind that had nuts in it and that Sirius hated, but that could somehow always be found about his flat all the same.

So prepared, he tugged the blanket tighter around his shoulders, nearly asleep on his feet. All he wanted to do right now was to go to bed and not get up until at least the next morning (or the morning after that, would be fine, too. Heaven on earth, in fact). He circled around the kitchen table, yawned deeply and vanished into the bedroom. The paper on the tabletop went completely unnoticed.

 

~O~

 

**Exclusive news! Attacks claim another fatal victim!**

_Early this evening, Sean Charleston, husband to Deputy Minister Arabella Charleston, succumbed to his severe bite wounds and grievous additional injuries. “It was hopeless,” so a spokesperson of St. Mungo’s hospital in an official interview. The Deputy Minister herself was not available for any commentary on the matter, but her assistant Antonius Openshaw appeared grimly determined. “We will have to take measures against this,” so Openshaw. “The wizarding society cannot and will not tolerate this threat any longer.” The cabinet of ministers will assemble for an urgent meeting this very night. (Read more on pages 5-7.)_

 

Harry squealed and tugged on the paper. There was a ripping noise, and then he was happily waving the lower left corner in his hand.

 _That’s right_ , thought James. _That’s the only thing this gossip sheet’s good for._

“Hypocrites,” he murmured under his breath.

“Hm?” Lily was regarding a burn on the kitchen wallpaper with a critically pensive frown. She didn’t read the newspaper anymore, on principle.

James raised the remaining part of the page. “Suddenly they can’t take action quick enough, now that somebody _important_ was affected. They’ve called an emergency meeting!”

Lily was absently stroking her chin. “But that’s good, isn’t it? For weeks you’ve been complaining that nobody in the ministry so much as dares to raise their head from the sand.”

“Hah,” said James. “An emergency meeting about the werewolf problem?”

Lily looked up quickly. James could clearly see the concern in her eyes, but a moment later she shook her head.

“We mustn’t pretend that this is not a very real threat just because we’re biased,” she said.

His Lily. Always so goddamn reasonable.

“If it can safe lives -- children --“

Harry tossed his bowl of porridge to the ground. James felt like he was about to burst into tears. Sometimes he didn’t understand himself anymore.

“And still,” he said quietly. “Still.”

 

~O~

 

An untouched apple and a crumpled piece of wrapping paper that spoke of the former existence of a bar of chocolate (the sort with nuts that Remus liked best) greeted Sirius on his bedside cabinet before he’d even had the chance to spot their owner in the darkness and the jumble of blankets and pillows strewn all over his bed.

He couldn’t help but grin. After full moon, Remus tended to quite literally burrow his way into whatever bed he found himself in. And, as usual, he was still sleeping the deep sleep of exhaustion and hadn’t even heard Sirius come in. Well, that was all right with him. He felt completely dead on his feet himself to be honest, no need for any impromptu midnight parties. All he wanted was to hit the hay and not be bothered by the Order until the day after tomorrow at the very least. Possibly longer.

Now he only had to figure out which areas of the hilly landscape on his bed were actually parts of Remus, and which were only bunched up bedclothes pretending to be. He poked about a bit for testing purposes and promptly encountered resistance. Remus grumbled and twitched and pulled his leg under the blanket higher and away.

Oh, typical! Sprawled haphazardly all over the bed yet again. Sirius rolled his eyes, considered the option of just taking the couch tonight for simplicity’s sake, but decided against it. After all, this was still _his_ bed, wasn’t it? He reached higher, found Remus’ shoulder and tapped him awake as gently as he could.

“Remus.”

Remus’ eyelids twitched. “Mmh?”

“Budge over a bit, will you?”

That was met with obvious displeasure. Remus made a growling noise in his throat and tried to burrow deeper between the pillows. “Piss off.”

Charming as always. Sirius stifled his laughter, and bent down instead to press first his nose and then his lips against Remus’ neck, right at his hairline behind the ear, right where he knew that his late-nightly beard stubble would tickle the most and -- success! Remus hunched his shoulders up reflexively, his hand flailing aimlessly upwards without hitting Sirius in the least, and now he did become a little more awake.

“Unghh.” He rolled over on his back and blinked at Sirius, bleary-eyed. “’late issit?”

“Much too late,” said Sirius and yawned. “You’re lying on my side of the bed.”

“Since when do you have a side of the bed?” muttered Remus, but he did budge, just about far enough that Sirius would hopefully not fall out of bed as soon as he moved in his sleep.

“You’re lying on both sides of the bed, actually. But as the owner of said bed I have a rightful claim to one of them,” he explained to Remus as he slipped under the covers. The bit of space that Moony had parted with would more aptly be called a generous quarter rather than a proper half, but hell, who cared. In exchange it was wonderfully warm already.

Remus grinned a little, but his eyes were shut and he was clearly already drifting off again, because what he said next emerged only as an unintelligible mumble that Sirius couldn’t make out.

“Right you are,” he answered anyway. “Go back to sleep.”

The moon was still almost full, but mostly covered in clouds. Remus shifted closer to him again, sighed deeply and was quiet. Sirius took a last glance at the clock, almost fell off the bed, wrapped an arm around Remus’ chest to prevent himself from falling off the bed, curled up against him as close as he could and yawned contently. He was almost all the way asleep when something else came to mind.

“Moony, why is the living room flooded?”

Remus only snored lightly and didn’t answer.

 

~O~

 

Lily woke up when James retracted his arm from around her. She knew he was very careful not to disturb her, but she was a light sleeper. The bed creaked a little when James pushed off the edge, and she saw his narrow silhouette appear at the window, arms crossed in front of his chest.

He did that very often lately. She wondered if he was aware that she was watching him. Was he thinking about the Miltons’ little girl? Or something else completely? His friends, maybe. Sirius contacted them in the mirror at regular intervals, at least, even if he rarely had time to stop by. But then there was Remus, who was making himself scarce, or so it felt to her, and she missed him often. Oh, he did visit, that wasn’t it. It was the way he seemed to elude questions so elegantly that you barely noticed he did, how it felt as if he was closing himself off from them more and more. James was restive about that, she knew. But then again - somehow they had all become a little like that, hadn’t they? More quiet, more withdrawn, the war left its marks on them. Even Sirius was more earnest, harsher sometimes than he used to be. James didn’t talk as much anymore and he was often cynical and bitter. Lily herself had occasionally been frightened by how distant and pragmatic she could think about things that would have brought tears to her eyes only two years earlier.

They had all changed, nobody was exempt from that. Peter barely showed his face anymore and appeared to be caught in a constant state of anxiety he couldn’t shake off. But none of that was a reason to spend so many nights sleepless at the window. Even Harry was better at sleeping through the night than his father.

“James,” she said, extending her hand to him. “Come back to bed.”

He didn’t seem surprised that she was awake, but aside from a fleeting glance and a shake of the head, he didn’t react. Lily sighed. Then she turned around and closed her eyes.

Sleep was a long time coming, but beside her the bed remained empty.

 

~O~


End file.
